


A War of Their Own

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU - 1800s, AU - War, Alternate Universe - Historical, American Civil War, Angst, Blackmail, Detailed smut, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, Gratuitous Smut, Heartbeat Kink, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Love Letters, M/M, Nurse Castiel, Series, Soldier Dean, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-03-06 17:57:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18856123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: The year is 1864 and Dean and Castiel are caught amidst the war of the century -- and the romance of a lifetime. Will their love survive or will it die with the war?





	1. En Route to China

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Tentmates](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18735175) by [Unforth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforth/pseuds/Unforth). 



> I've wanted to write a Civil War AU for the longest time and this recent fic inspired me. Thank you!

Dean trudges forward with a grunt as his foot slips into another puddle. He seriously regrets leaving his Hardee hat behind at the last site. The rain’s coming down so hard now; the hair on his head is dancing and it renders his blue wool coat and trousers useless in keeping him warm. In fact, it’s absorbing the water, adding an extra ten pounds to his girlish figure. Lord knows he needs it with all the food rations.

“Let’s go! Move it!”

With his two left feet splashing against the treacherous wetland, Dean pushes forward and falls face-first into the mud. His superior stops, turns around, and bends down to get right in Dean’s face. “Winchester! This isn’t figure skating! This is  _war.”_

 _“_ Yes, Sarg!”

Superior Singer is shaking from either too much caffeine, too little patience, or the weather. 

“-ent,” Dean adds as an afterthought.

Singer growls before standing up, but it’s masked by nearby thunder. 

Dean picks himself up, to his dismay: He doesn’t notice the envelope that falls from his inside coat pocket into a growing puddle. What once had hours of carefully crafted penmanship is now illegible ink blots. Frustrated, he swipes it from the water and shoves it in his pocket again.

“C’mon, stuff a rag under it and move it ladies!”

“Dean!” his comrade calls, “You—!”

Dean doesn’t hear anything over the rain. Or the splash that engulfs his body, followed by the deafening ringing in his ears.

 

 

 

It’s not the blood-curdling screams he awakes to. Or the bustle of people around him. Dean’s used to those things. What he awakes to is the gentle hand on his head. It actually startles him so bad it shakes the wet rag from his forehead. Then, as his eyes still adjust, something wet slithers down his temple. Bringing his hand up, he’s met with a fresh coat of blood that stains his fingertips. The bandage around his head is tight, but he can still feel a hollow spot in his skull that can fit the top knuckle of his index finger. He retracts it quickly, however, when sharp, stinging pain bites back.

“Shh, it’s okay.”

Dean opens his eyes again once the pain subsides to the sight of a familiar deft pair of hands wringing out the rag that fell. The water falls in a stream of red in a bucket by his bedside.

“I... I...”

“There was a cannon fire over your last site. Luckily, most of you were a good distance away by then to suffer only mild injuries. We think you had a concussion, so we took the liberty to relieve some of the pressure in your head.”

“Most of us?” Dean asks. Even after three years, news of a comrade dying on the field still makes his heart race. “Who?”

“I think their names were Jesse and… Cedric? Cesar, maybe.”

Dean sighs and bangs his head against the grimy bedpost. “Fuck.”

There’s a moment of silence between the two, then Dean asks, in a quiet hesitance, “Do you think it’s because...?”

He can tell Cas knows what he’s implying. But the closest he gets to scratching Dean’s itch is lifting the bandage to dab the open, leaky wound on Dean’s head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure where I stand with God anymore.”

Dean decides to change the subject. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“Do I have a thick skull?”

Dean almost thinks he doesn’t hear him because Cas continues working. This time, he grabs another used roll of gauze from the medicine stand. But then he replies, “The thickest. We had to stop just so we didn’t reach China so soon.”

Even though that’s a joke, Cas isn’t smiling. 

“What do you think China’s like, Cas?”

“Hopefully better than this.”

“We should see The Great Wall one day,” Dean says. “My bunkmate Kevin told me all about it. 13 miles of mountainside and it took  _two-hundred_ years to build. Can you believe that?”

“I think we drilled too far into your head.”

“Wait, hear me out: We can sneak onto a cargo ship and live off catfish and ocean water.”

“Okay,” Cas says. Even though Dean can tell it’s just to pacify him, he’ll take it. “We’ll go to China.”

“Perfect. Oh, and um... I was gonna send another letter, but...” Dean grunts as he wiggles to retrieve the damp paper from his earlier fall. He feels around for page 2, to no avail. He must’ve left it at the other camp site. Not like it’s a big deal; he remembers what he wrote. His love for Cas is the only unchanging thing about this war.

That’s when Castiel reveals  _that_ smile—that deep, dimpled, pearly white and gummy smile that lights up the dormant sea in his eyes. “That’s funny, because...” Cas produces his own damp letter from his jacket. “Dropped it gurneying you inside.”

“We’re both a coupla dumbasses, huh?”

“I prefer the word ‘unlucky’. Less ‘dumb’, less ‘ass’.”

“Hey, Castiel—we need you on the next patient.”

“Be right there, Tessa,” Cas replies. He turns back to Dean to say, in the same quiet voice but without the hesitance, “I love you but I better not see you back here, you hear?”

“That’s up to the rebs to decide.” 

Cas gives him a pointed look.

“ _But_ , even if it means being apart from you, I’ll be quicker on my toes.”

Cas scoffs, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his lips when he moves onto the next soldier. He loves watching Castiel work. He’s an amazing nurse. He’s quick, but gentle. Honest, but sympathetic. No matter how much time he spends with one patient, he treats them with the attention and respect they deserve.

Dean will never know how he stomachs seeing all that carnage and pain and suffering. Then again, he doesn’t know how _he_ stomachs it.

Some days he doesn’t. Some days it’s swimming in toilet water.

“Alright soldier, time’s up. We need this bed.”

“Huh?” Dean shakes himself from his musings quick enough to avoid the scowl from the nurse above him. “Oh, right, right. Sorry.”

Dean moves so they can lay another man in his place. It’s Cole, another soldier in his garrison. His leg’s clinging onto his thigh like an isolated shoe sole. No chance he’ll survive the operation.

He hates seeing this happen. And then he hates himself for thinking so selflessly. But seriously, why him? Why save Dean’s miserable life and not Cole’s, who has a wife and two young daughters at home? And what angers him is he probably won’t know the answer until it’s his time.

And even then, that’s only if God is real. He’s been on the fence about that lately too.

Sliding Cas’s letter back into his jacket pocket, Dean slips out of the tent and back into the driving rain.


	2. Alcohol and Other Stings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There isn't enough whiskey to swallow the pill Dean's handed when he stumbles across a big secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me trying to write my own summaries for once!

Dean makes a mental note to formally apologize to Victor Henriksen.

Four years ago, he would’ve told you he doesn’t like the guy. He would’ve said he’s wound up tighter than a hand crank music box. But four years ago, Dean wasn’t fighting a war. None of them were. Before this war, none of them would be caught dead together: A group of white men amongst a second generation Chinese man and a black man. And now, they’re all laughing and drinking in the face of the night sky, speckled with starry freckles… and alcohol. Mostly alcohol. (Again, thanks to Victor, who somehow managed to smuggle it onto their site.)

Maybe Dean will never understand just how wound-up this war makes a black man. But tonight is proof that that’s okay. For now, they’re okay.

A little _too_ okay. Needless to say, they stumble into their bunks sometime after midnight. Everyone passes out within a few minutes, except Dean. This is the time of day his intrusive thoughts hit him like a bullet in the head. Tossing and turning feels more like squirming and writhing underneath his thin white sheet of a blanket—a foreshadow into the not-so distant future. Flashes of people who he got to know on the inside a little too well from canon blasts. People whose hearts were shattered from far more than homesickness. People who he christened brother—a rare title to earn from Dean Winchester. 

**_Benny’s eyes glaze over. “I’m sorry,” he whispers as his head rolls off the long metal blade and onto the soiled plain beneath them._ **

**_Dean laughs, clutching his chest in unison with Garth. Except Garth isn’t catching laughter on his chest. Even his wool can’t absorb the blood racing down his sleeve. But it does catch his fall._ **

**_“Richie!”_ **

**_Richie pauses in his stride to the other end of the camp. He looks the exact same as he did in elementary. “Dean, my man!” he yells back, smile wide and bright. “Looks like we’re stuck here tog—”_ **

**_A round from a musket rifle pierces through the conversation—and Richie’s body, decorating him like an O-heavy game of Tic Tac Toe._ **

Dean shoots up. He’s not worried about being quiet. Normally, the guys are on their feet at the drop of a boot, but the alcohol will keep everyone sedated until morning. Right now, he needs to get as far away from here as possible.

As soon as he’s outside, he lights a cigarette. The sky’s a shade darker, giving the stars a more prominent, almost ethereal glow, and the slow burn of his joint adds a red dwarf into the mix. It’s a rare, fleeting moment in time when the earth is still. But Dean’s anything but. Even the prickly, dying grass beneath his worn boots knows the truth. It’s seen the same war he has. It’s felt the same stickiness of another man’s blood and carried the weight of his weightless body. It knows before Dean even puts out his cigarette that nicotine won’t bring him solace.

But maybe the water will. Up ahead is a small stream they sometimes use to bathe. Sometimes being the operative word, of course, because there’s so little time in a day when you’re constantly on the run for your life.

Sure enough, the water is still, and even the air is a little crisper. As Dean breathes in, the water breathes with him, the way it makes gentle laps towards the distant forest. Even the sound of the rocks, probably older than Dean himself, crunching beneath his shoes is a lullaby to his restless mind. Several times he does this intentionally, just rolling the rocks around like dice. With any luck, he’ll land on a lucky number. But Dean’s luck’s been thin lately.

In an instant, he’s on his feet again with a knife he pulls from his pocket: There’s a splash coming from the stream. He aligns his back behind a tree and slowly peers his head around to find—

A dream. This has to be a dream—and good for him, for eventually falling asleep. He’s just not sure who this woman is and why she’s… well, naked.

But the thing is, he recognizes her face. She looks like—

Dean decides he’s had enough fresh air and heads back towards the bunks.

~.~

_Angel,_

_It’s only been a week, but even that’s too long. I need it._

_I need another taste of whiskey._

_I wish you were here to taste it with me. But then again, alcohol tastes different to you. You’re a nurse. Alcohol to you must taste like a dull sting in your chest. But to me, that sting is comfort. It’s like a warm embrace around my chest. Alcohol tastes like freedom. I wouldn’t be surprised if alcohol is the answer to this goddamn war. After all, none of us are attractive when we’re shitfaced—and that’s what makes all men equal. Or created equal. Whatever._

_We’re heading north tomorrow. I’ll try to write again soon._

_Dean_

_Dean,_

_You’re right. Alcohol doesn’t do much for me. You know why? Because you’re the sting in my chest. And it’s anything but dull._

_Stay safe. I love you._

_Your angel_

Smile unrelenting, Dean re-reads those seven sentences again. He traces his fingers over the penmanship that’s so engraved in the paper it made dents on the flipside. It’s not the same as touching Cas, like the fleeting moment they spent in the northeast tent the first time they met. He doesn’t feel the same surge of lightening coursing through his fingertips. But he does feel thunder reverberating in his chest.

“You got a secret admirer?”

Scrambling to his feet, Dean shoves the letter in his coat pocket. “I, uh… no. ‘ts jus’ junk mail.”

“Junk mail? Who on Earth would pay the unruly price of postage to send phony letters?”

“Beats me—”

Dean’s breath catches when he turns to face the soldier in question. He’s known Aaron since they were stationed in southern Tennessee. They’ve even shared a cigarette or two. But he’s obviously never _seen_ Aaron. Never bothered to take into consideration just how low-hanging his cropped curly brown hair is, or how dirty his face is around his mouth. And if he did, he probably would’ve chalked it up to the result of war. After all, it’s easy to lose sight of the upkeep on your hair—Lord knows Dean could use a cut—and it’s extremely difficult to find running water on the go.

But Aaron managed to find it last week.

“You don’t look so good, Dean,” he— _she_ says, lip curling into a small but thoroughly amused smile. “You look like you could use a cold bath.”

“How did you know?”

“Oh please. The animals on the other side of the _stream_ could hear you. You know, crunching every single rock in your path isn’t the best way to be discreet.”

“Is this a joke to you? I caught you breaking the _law._ I saw you… _all…_ of you…”

“That you did,” she says, smile widening as she takes a careful but confidently calculated step towards him. “In fact, it tickles me that you did. You’re a handsome guy, Dean. Too bad you’re taken.”

Dean’s heart pounds so hard, it makes a hollow cave between his lungs when he sees it.

Aaron drops her gaze drops to Dean’s. “Oh this,” she says, plucking the thin, wrinkly sheet of paper from her coat pocket. “I picked it up when you dropped it a few weeks ago. I was gonna give it back to you, but now... now it serves a purpose.”

“It was a letter to my mom,” he grits through his teeth. “What’s wrong with missing a rump roast?”

“Really?” Aaron tests, stepping dangerously closer to Dean. “Because I was able to make it out okay. And it was about a rump, alright. Just not your mom’s.”

“Listen. I won’t tell anyone. What’s the big deal anyway?”

“I could say the same for you,” Aaron says. “After all, you’re only in love with another  _man.”_

“Look, man. Woman. Whatever your name is, I don’t know what your angle is—”

“The name’s Amara,” she cuts in, smile thinning out to match Dean’s stressed brows. “And my angle? My angle is your angle: I want to serve just like everyone else.”

“Yeah, except I didn’t  _choose_ to be part of this war!” Dean rages. A few other soldiers turn their direction and Dean makes the tough yet conscious effort to lower his voice to a growl. “And I didn’t choose to fall in love. You somehow rigged the system and chose to put your life at risk just to what, exactly? Prove a point? Yes, you can shoot a gun as well as anyone out here with a penis. You happy? Is that the validation you’re looking for?”

“This attitude sounds like you want this letter leaked.”

“Fine, okay? Fine.” Dean sighs furiously before reciprocating her audacious step forward. “But when the jig is up,  _don’t_ drag him into this. Understood?”

Amara’s grin is back at full capacity, and it looks more dangerous than any loaded gun Dean’s had pointed at him. “You two make a cute couple. Pleasure doing business with you.”

 

 


	3. Fiction versus Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean’s pulse decides then to jump. Maybe it’s the intensity in his dark blue eyes. Maybe it’s the sternness of his stubbled jaw. Or maybe it’s the fact that Cas is a few inches from his face when he spits back, “All the time.”  
> Still, Dean persists. “Oh yeah, then why am I here?”  
> “You tell me,” Cas says, “you’re the one swelling up.”  
> Dean glances down and swallows his spit like a shot of sake: recklessly and with some difficulty. “Well, um... it looks like I’m due for my annual physical.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well;;;;;; this escalated quickly

Dean wakes up in a meadow. For a moment, it’s peaceful. The grass cushions him like a springy mattress. The air is still, only blowing every so often to dust his dirt-stricken cheeks. Cicadas chirp in the distance, filling his ears with a Tibetan song.

Except, they’re not cicadas. His ears are ringing—the result of a shotgun blast. And it’s not dirt on his face: It’s a budding scab. And the grass he’s lying in only provides support until another body hoists him up and carries him elsewhere. The hands propping him up by the backs of his knees and head are long and slender, but firm in their grip. And the chest pressing against the side of his body is robust and warm, save for the stiff metal object hitting his ribcage with every stride.

When he awakens, the same object is playing a game of one-man chess across his chest. Blearily, Dean opens his eyes and finds a stethoscope. Behind it, a man—the rightful owner of the long and slender hands, staring up at him.

It’s like Dean’s throat is a well that’s never seen water when he croaks, “Afternoon.”

The man nods. “Hello.”

And Dean thought he needed water.

“Nice tent,” Dean remarks, doing his best to look around without moving too much, “you, um, erect it yourself?”

Dean shuts his eyes. God, where’s an explosion when you need one?

“No, the wind just blew on it the right away.”

Dean cocks his head a little with a smile. “A doc with a sense of humor. That’s rare around these parks.”

“Nurse, actually,” the man corrects as Dean struggles to block out the sun streaming through a hole in the top of the tent, shining down on the man like a halo. “Nurse Novak. But you can call me Cas.”

“Like sass. I’ll remember that. The name’s Dean. So, Nurse Cas, why am I here, exactly?” Then, panic rises like an avalanche in his chest. He shoots up from the cool, metal table he’s lying on. “Are my men okay?”

“There was an open fire, but from a good distance, so no one was seriously injured. You and a few others ran off, but you’re the only one that managed to step on a branch.”

“I knocked myself out... with a branch?”

“It was a very daunting branch.”

Dean scoffs as Cas resumes with the stethoscope, as if he thinks he just got away with murder. “I’ve seen things that’d make you squirm,” he bites back. “Have you seen men’s skulls look like the chewed up metal part of a pencil after a human stampede?”

“On the operating table?” Cas asks as he removes the stethoscope. Dean’s pulse decides then to jump. Maybe it’s the intensity in his dark blue eyes. Maybe it’s the sternness of his stubbled jaw. Or maybe it’s the fact that Cas is a few inches from his face when he spits back, “All the time.”

Still, Dean persists. “Oh yeah, then why am I here?”

“You tell me,” Cas says, “you’re the one swelling up.”

Dean glances down and swallows his spit like a shot of sake: recklessly and with some difficulty. “Well, um... it looks like I’m due for my annual physical.”

Cas’s eyes shift into something more hot and sinister—a stark contrast to the cold stethoscope slipping underneath his shirt. Dean’s breath hitches, but he doesn’t make any attempt to stop Cas. Especially when the blunt, rusty object travels up his sternum and over his left nipple, gently knocking against his rock hard nub.

Cas presses into the nipple a moment later, as if to extinguish a flame that’s already burning. He does the same to Dean’s right breast, eliciting the same, choked response. Cas then moves south and down his clavicle, over his belly button before resting the stethoscope halfway between the waistband of his boxers and his stomach. 

Cas flicks his head up, awaiting an answer.

“P-please, Cas.”

That’s a good enough confirmation for Cas to sink lower, deeper into the trenches of his pubic hair with the instrument. Dean moans at first contact. Cas waits until a long, careful line down the side of Dean’s fully erect cock is mapped. It’s slow and it’s tantalizing, but it’s worth it when Cas ditches the stethoscope for his hand. Massaging him with one, Cas uses his other to tuck Dean’s pants beneath his balls. Dean bucks up into the slow, torturous motions, crying, “Oh fuck, oh yes, oh God!”

And when Cas forgoes his hand for his mouth, Dean has to agree with his Freudian slip: It’s the closest he’s come to witnessing God since he was drafted.

_“Dean. It’s so big. Oh God—”_

Dean’s pulled back to the present when something wet trickles down the side of his leg.

“Dean. Oh God. Just hang tight, okay. Oh God...”

Dean shifts his focus from the giant, gaping hole in his leg to a frantic, panic-stricken Kevin Tran. Between his many thick, unrestrained wrinkles and the veins protruding from his neck like double-layered spider webs as he cries for help, Kevin’s current state ages him 40 years. 

He makes a split-second decision and bends down. Tearing the fabric from the bottom hem of his oversized pants, Kevin takes each end and wraps it snug around Dean’s thigh. Dean groans, and he’s not sure if it’s because of the pain from the cloth pressing up against his exit wound or the help he’s receiving. His blood seeps straight through the fabric anyway.

“Kevin!” he yells over the muskets. Kevin has the expression of a deer about to get hit by a tank. Dean manages to smile a little, just to reassure the poor kid. “Thank you! But you go! Save your—“

Another gunshot. This one closer. Too close. Kevin collapses in front of him.

“No.” It feels like his lungs are closing in on him. He manages to scream before they do, even as he’s being hauled up by two unfamiliar men in white uniforms, “No! No, no,  _no, no, no_!”

“Strip him!”

“Doctor Devereaux, we can’t possibly mend this. He’s going to need amputation...”

“No,” Dean repeats, trembling on the cold hospital gurney, “no, no, no. I’m not ready to die. I’m not, I can’t—”

“So be it. Grab the saw and get the rag. Bring him to the east tent to recover after surgery.”

Dean shakes his head furiously, but he still can’t get the proper words out. The east tent is where they send the bodies to be dumped later into the nearby river. “No, no, no, no,  _no—_ where’s Cas? I need to see Ca...”

The chloroform sends him into a peaceful dream. One where he’s not got a gaping hole in his leg. One where he’s not  _hurting_ from a gaping hole in his leg. Instead, Cas is beside him, squeezing his hand. Except, Cas isn’t pain-free either. Streaming down his face are tears and the interment kisses placed on his forehead are riddled with tremble.

This isn’t a dream.

Dean blinks a little quicker, adjusting to the scene. Cas’s breath hitches. “Dean?!”

Despite the pungent smell of rot and their vessels and the earache-inducing sound of rusty gurney wheels bustling around outside the tent, Cas smiles wider than Dean’s ever seen. “Dean!”

Cas pulls the upper half of his body into a crushing hug, forcing Dean to stare down at his leg... or, what’s left of it. From mid-thigh all the way to his foot is a vague interpretation of a leg made of wood.

“Cas, I... I don’t want it.”

Pulling back, Cas faces him with a troublesome expression. “What, love?”

“I don’t want it.”

Cas follows Dean’s gaze. “What’re you talking about?” he asks with a small laugh. “It’s your leg. Your new leg.”

“I... I don’t... I don’t want it. What I... what I want is this...” Dean risks cupping his hand around Cas’s cheek and there’s that electricity again. He can tell Cas can feel it when he jolts forward, bumping into Dean’s lips, though not quite kissing him. They always seem to be one step out of reach of each other, even when they’re within arms’ length. “I want as much real as possible before I go.”

Reluctant at first then more assured, Cas nods against Dean’s forehead. “Okay. That I can do— _we_ can do.”

“Can we also get me out of here?” Dean asks as he looks around again briefly and meets the glassy, unmoving eyes of Kevin Tran. He’s sandwiched between dozens of other lifeless bodies like a moving box among others: Just another change Dean will have to be forced to accept. “I... I need to get back to my men.”

Cas nods. This time, it doesn’t come with hesitation as he peels himself from Dean. “Of course. Let’s get you back.”


End file.
